Goldfish, you say
I know from 20 odd years as an aerodrome controller many many pilots only request an intersection departure when the are taxiing to try and jump the queue which if you ask me is not very professional.
At the Airline I work for we have a balanced service concept, which means if we are running late we will try and catch up the time, hopefully with a combination of intersection takeoff and higher speeds......its just a concept we have to improve our customer service (would be nice if ATNS and ACSA had a similar concept....but I guess you dont need good service, you have a monopoly dont you?)
I would think an intersection takeoff request would be useful for you guys then you can make the traffic flow to your advantage instead of having a jet wait 5 minutes lined up on the runway waiting for a Dash 8 or a Caravan to move off.
Having witnessed how the traffic flows in London or the US, with many times the volume that we have here, perhaps you could enlighten me why we often end up waiting 5 min between departures (same aircraft type) on a day with not a cloud in the sky, often explained as congestion with Radar. Not trying to pick a fight, but how come they can handle the volumes they do in London and we cant handle the volumes here, is it equipment, training, different separation rules? it cant all be due to poor runway layout.